Measuring the Brand Equity of Puerto Rico as a Destination Brand

Destinations are developing their branding strategies aimed to differentiate themselves and to attract more tourists; Puerto Rico is one of these destinations. The objectives of this quantitative study were to validate a customer-based brand equity model based in the consumer perception, measure the brand equity of Puerto Rico as a destination brand, and develop branding recommendations for the destination. In this study the brand equity was measured through five dimensions: performance, social image, price/value, trustworthiness, and identification/attachment. An online survey was done using a consumer panel where participants have visited Puerto Rico. The data analysis used Structural Equation Modeling to determine the influences between the dimensions and used the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to analyze if the elapsed time since respondents visited the destination had an impact on their perception. Puerto Rico obtained a brand equity score of 5.39. Due to the nature of the brand equity concept, the United States Virgin Islands was selected as the destination brand to which Puerto Rico was compared.